KYC software for banks: A guide to 8 leading solutions

1. GBG: End-to-end KYC software for banks with advanced risk signals built in

Since we’re writing this article, we’ll introduce ourselves first: we’re a global identity technology business with more than 30 years of experience in the identity verification space. We cover the full KYC spectrum, from identity verification and biometrics authentication to fraud detection and ongoing monitoring. 

GBG Go, our end-to-end identity orchestration platform, enables you to verify genuine customers in 195+ countries with more than 80 KYC modules delivered via a single API.

Here are a few reasons banks like HSBC, Santander, and Metro Bank choose to work with us: 

1. Increase customer pass rates and support compliance with granular global data

As a bank, you know you need to onboard genuine customers quickly and smoothly while also ensuring that KYC checks meet strict regulatory expectations. 

Achieving the right balance depends on the quality, depth, and consistency of the underlying data. This is why, instead of relying on a single bureau or a narrow dataset, we layer multiple global and local data sources across 50 countries to deliver more accurate results. If one source is missing, another can supplement it, reducing false positives and increasing first-time pass rates.

This focus on rich data is why banks typically see uplift when adding our solution to their waterfall. For example, many institutions start with a credit bureau for cost efficiency but turn to our broader data to capture customers that would otherwise fail due to thin files, incomplete records, or address mismatches.

Instead of returning a simple pass/fail decision, we provide detailed insight into each data attribute, such as name, address, and phone number. This helps your compliance teams:

• Better understand why a customer passed or failed verification
• Defend these decisions to regulators
• Refine rules and thresholds over time to create the most optimal onboarding experience

Another challenge banks are familiar with is data format inconsistency: when you’re stitching together data from multiple sources and KYC vendors, you need to normalize inputs, which adds further complexity.

We designed our all-in-one KYC orchestration platform, GBG Go, to consolidate data in one place and return it in a consistent format via a single, unified API. For example, the solution can access data from multiple credit bureaus, cross-check 8,500+ global ID types (including Digital IDs) across 195 countries, and screen 450+ PEPs, sanctions, and adverse media watchlists before standardizing all data and bringing everything together in one view.

2. Detect fraud earlier with cross-industry intelligence and powerful risk signals

In a heavily regulated industry, you need to ensure that the customers you approve are not high-risk actors, synthetic identities, or potential money mules.

This is why we overlay fraud signals on top of identity data, enabling banks to spot anomalies much earlier in the onboarding journey.

For example, you can place our GBG Trust product, a cross-industry dataset built from millions of transactions across 28+ sectors, to deliver real-time fraud protection at the start of the onboarding journey. The solution returns a risk score between 1–100 to help detect high-risk applicants and block suspicious activity before unnecessary checks are triggered. This prevents fraud from progressing further into your funnel.

You can also rely on advanced risk signals, from email identity intelligence and smartphone identity security to our location intelligence solution that helps correlate an internet address with a secure geolocation, conducting 3 billion address verifications per month.

For example, a major challenger bank that already uses another provider for core KYC checks leverages our fraud overlay to strengthen fraud detection capabilities.

3. Tailor onboarding with configurable workflows for a better customer experience

For banks, KYC onboarding can’t be one-size-fits-all. Regulatory expectations, product risk levels, customer profiles, and fraud exposure vary widely across the board, and applying the same level of friction to every applicant would create unnecessary drop-offs and operational overhead.

Offering too little friction, however, exposes you to financial crime and regulatory penalties.

With our GBG Go platform, you can design product and geography-specific onboarding workflows that reflect your risk appetite and regulatory requirements. For example, you can:

• Increase friction for higher-risk products, such as premium credit cards or revolving credit lines, by incorporating enhanced fraud checks or step-up authentication.
• Reduce friction for lower-risk propositions, such as youth accounts or basic current accounts, using streamlined database checks (name, address, DOB) where suitable.

Crucially, you can also create workflows that dynamically adapt based on customer attributes like location, PEP status, or thin-file indicators, and route them between 80 different KYC modules in real time, including document verification, biometrics, sanctions screening, and more.

Your compliance teams can also:

• Set custom risk thresholds aligned with internal policies and regulatory obligations
• Adjust decision rules through a no-code interface
• Run A/B tests comparing different data sources, step-up triggers, and thresholds to fine-tune the KYC onboarding experience
• View each customer as a complete file with all information, decision data, and comments in one place (case management) for easier reviews and audits

How GBG helped a digital banking customer achieve a 20% uplift in onboarding new customers

A digital banking customer was struggling to strike the right balance between security and user experience during onboarding. Elevated decline rates were limiting customer acquisition and reducing conversion.

Concerned that adding further identity verification measures may create additional friction and disrupt the onboarding journey, the bank implemented our identity data verification solution at the very beginning of the process. Because the checks were performed behind the scenes, customers experienced no additional steps or delays.

Fraud risk indicators were then layered onto the initial identity checks, helping our customer better distinguish between genuine and fraudulent applicants.

By giving this customer more ways to quickly verify end-customers and assess underlying risk, we helped them achieve a 20% uplift in onboarding new customers, maximizing their conversion opportunities and increasing revenue.

Read the full case study here.